Is est totus circa gigabytes —

The Dealmaster’s SSD madness!

Some storage, some laptops, and a 55-inch 3D HDTV with all the trimmings!

The Dealmaster is back again, doin' a little east cost swing! The Dealmaster's got the deals, not too hard, not too soft.

We are bringing the triple SSD threat today, dropping Samsung-shaped bombs, starting with a 500GB Samsung 840 for $359. See if that one moves you! We've also got a way fly 120Hz 3D TV, with a passel of glasses you can share with your buddies so you can watch things coming out the screen on the harmony trip.

Back in school we used to dream about sales like this every day. Could it really happen? Or do dreams fade away? But then we started slinging deals, and the prices were so smooth. So we partnered up with LogicBuy, kickin' it just for you!

Lee Hutchinson
Lee is the Senior Technology Editor at Ars and oversees gadget, automotive, IT, and culture content. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX. Emaillee.hutchinson@arstechnica.com//Twitter@Lee_Ars

27 Reader Comments

While I can't justify the cost of SSD's as they are now, I simply cannot wait for these things to phase out traditional hard drives completely. Looking forward to one of these deals coming along that fits my budget.

While I can't justify the cost of SSD's as they are now, I simply cannot wait for these things to phase out traditional hard drives completely. Looking forward to one of these deals coming along that fits my budget.

They will never phase out traditional hard drives completely. magnetic storage is both cheap and effective, along with the added bonus of data recovery being an option when said drives fail; something that I've yet to see be an option when an SSD decides to kick the bucket.

While I can't justify the cost of SSD's as they are now, I simply cannot wait for these things to phase out traditional hard drives completely. Looking forward to one of these deals coming along that fits my budget.

A 120/128GB SSD can be had for $60-$80 on sale. That's more than enough for an operating system and a ton of applications.

Data (photos, videos, music, etc.) can still live on a regular hard drive.

While I can't justify the cost of SSD's as they are now, I simply cannot wait for these things to phase out traditional hard drives completely. Looking forward to one of these deals coming along that fits my budget.

That is nonsense. SSDs are under $1/Gb and offer such a huge performance increase as the boot/program files drive, that it is a totally justified purchase.

I started with an 80GB and secondary storage drive, and then went to 120 and now I am on a 240.

If it wasn't in my budget, I would fast for a week so I could afford one, Your current drive is probably the slowest part in your computer.

I wouldn't suggest the 840's over the 830's. 830's have higher sequential r/w speeds, 840's have higher random r/w speeds. From what I've seen on overclockers and anandtech the 840's are good for ~1k P/E cycles whereas the 830's are 4k+.

Depending on your usage, the increased reliability might not be an issue, both versions will last years. Most people are best off getting whichever is cheaper, the 128GB 830 is available for less than the 840 above. I'm sticking with 830's for heavy-use environments for now.

Finally built a new computer this past weekend and got one of those 256gb Samsung 830's at Microcenter for not much more than this. Instant gratification makes it easier to pull the trigger on expensive electronics.

They will never phase out traditional hard drives completely. magnetic storage is both cheap and effective, along with the added bonus of data recovery being an option when said drives fail; something that I've yet to see be an option when an SSD decides to kick the bucket.

Never say never. I remember talk about how CRTs would never be completely replaced by flat-panel TVs, and many other examples. The facts are, as prices go down, the reasons to keep using clunky and slow magnetic drives goes away. If you want protection against failure, here's the answer: Redundancy and backups, it works much better than trying to recover data from a broken disk drive.

I'd be surprised if they still make old-style Hard Drives in 10 years.

While I can't justify the cost of SSD's as they are now, I simply cannot wait for these things to phase out traditional hard drives completely. Looking forward to one of these deals coming along that fits my budget.

A 120/128GB SSD can be had for $60-$80 on sale. That's more than enough for an operating system and a ton of applications.

Data (photos, videos, music, etc.) can still live on a regular hard drive.

What are you waiting for?!

Games. They take up a lot of space and I don't like doing the data shuffle. I'd rather dump everything on c: and not mess with the libraries.

While I can't justify the cost of SSD's as they are now, I simply cannot wait for these things to phase out traditional hard drives completely. Looking forward to one of these deals coming along that fits my budget.

A 120/128GB SSD can be had for $60-$80 on sale. That's more than enough for an operating system and a ton of applications.

Data (photos, videos, music, etc.) can still live on a regular hard drive.

What are you waiting for?!

This. Having your OS and most-run apps on the SSD bring such an outstanding performance increase it's unbelievable.

I've known for a long time that they make a big difference, but it's different when you actually set one up. Your PC boots and runs so much faster it's ridiculous. If you don't have one, getting an SSD (even just a run of the mill average one) is pretty much the single most effective $/performance upgrade you can make.

On another note, I like the concept of these Dealmaster articles, but I've found that they generally aren't good deals overall, but rather individual items with large markdowns - but where substantially better deals for similar items can be found elsewhere. Saving $100 off of 1000 is a great savings over list price, but if you can get a comparable item elsewhere for $800 regular it's not a great deal.

Why bit.ly links? Why? I don't get it. Their servers are slow and it takes ages for redirect to kick in and take me to the real link. People use them on twitter to shorten the post. But here it makes no sense unless some sort of click tracking is going on.

Note that those are the Samsung 840 drives that use the TLC (Triple Level Cell) memory and not the Samsung 840 Pro models that use the standard MLC (Multi-Level Cell (really dual layer)). That's why they have the lower P/E cycle count compared to the 830 series drives. The purpose is to be able to boost the capacity at a lower cost and still keep performance at a reasonable level. If you want the benefits of the new 840 controller combined with the performance and longevity of the 830 drives, you want the 840 Pro disks. They do cost more though. For example, the 256GB 840 Pro is $269.99 at Newegg (not putting a link here, you can find it yourself if you are interested) compared to just $179 for the 250GB 840 at BuyIt.

While I can't justify the cost of SSD's as they are now, I simply cannot wait for these things to phase out traditional hard drives completely. Looking forward to one of these deals coming along that fits my budget.

A 120/128GB SSD can be had for $60-$80 on sale. That's more than enough for an operating system and a ton of applications.

Data (photos, videos, music, etc.) can still live on a regular hard drive.

What are you waiting for?!

Games. They take up a lot of space and I don't like doing the data shuffle. I'd rather dump everything on c: and not mess with the libraries.

Presenting advertisements as editorial content, putting slimy sales pitches under the Ars masthead, cheapens your whole site. It makes you much less useful and trustworthy, because you're demonstrably willing to shill for dollars.

Knowing that you're willing to pull this kind of crap, how can I trust your other opinions?

While I can't justify the cost of SSD's as they are now, I simply cannot wait for these things to phase out traditional hard drives completely. Looking forward to one of these deals coming along that fits my budget.

A 120/128GB SSD can be had for $60-$80 on sale. That's more than enough for an operating system and a ton of applications.

In fact, Newegg has the Crucial M4 128GB SSD for $78. I just put the 64GB version in my Mac mini this weekend (using the 2nd HDD kit from iFixit).

Having your OS on the SSD is definitely worth it, grabbing a <$100 100GB+ one is one of the best upgrades you can get for a current PC and in my opinion a must for newer machines.

PapagenoF wrote:

Any thoughts on that LG TV combo?

Personally, not impressed. I don't usually consider dell to be the best deals when it comes to TV prices, and a quick search shows the same prices at other outlets. I got myself a 50" LG almost 2 years ago now, for about the same price as this one. Mine is also a 3D TV, however it is one of the really high end plasmas (A conscious decision). IT's also one of edge-edge glass ones so you don't get the bevel look.

I like LG for the TV quality (don't bother with the in-TV apps, they're awful), but i'm not sure this is really a great discount per say. I suspect in a few weeks you might be able to find better ones

Oh a final somewhat random note - most of the passive 3D glasses and active ones are pretty similar in terms of price now ($20-35 a pair). I just purchased 4 active glasses since that's the tech my TV uses, and all 4 came out to less than the $129.99 sticker still on each of the boxes

While I can't justify the cost of SSD's as they are now, I simply cannot wait for these things to phase out traditional hard drives completely. Looking forward to one of these deals coming along that fits my budget.

A 120/128GB SSD can be had for $60-$80 on sale. That's more than enough for an operating system and a ton of applications.

Data (photos, videos, music, etc.) can still live on a regular hard drive.

What are you waiting for?!

Games. They take up a lot of space and I don't like doing the data shuffle. I'd rather dump everything on c: and not mess with the libraries.

Two words: Fusion Drive.

Except Fusion Drive is Mac-only, and I really don't know what the analogous solution would be for Windows yet; since fusion drive is not a cache... (I'm actually really surprised Microsoft hasn't made their own version of Fusion Drive yet..)

Speaking of which, will these SSD's work if I wanted to roll my own fusion drive into my 2012 mini?

The last time SSD was covered in one of these posts, we pointed out that picking an OCZ drive over something like a Samsung 830 or Crucial M4 was a poor choice.

Now we get the Samsung 840, which uses brand new untested technology that beats or loses to the Samsung 830 drive, a proven reliable drive.

A logical conclusion would be that these are in fact advertisements, rather than thoughtful alerts on deals. Either that, or your staff did not peruse your own forums and read the long-running SSD thread. Neither of those are good things.

Lastly, I should point out to anyone on the fence that it would be in your best interest to pick up an SSD. If you're old enough, you might remember your first sound card, 3d accelerator, or other major impact on your systems performance. SSD drives are on the same level as this. Do yourself a favor and pick one up! Look for the Samsung 830 and Crucial M4, these are both drives with solid reliability and performance, and can often be found on sites like slickdeals or fatwallet.

Games. They take up a lot of space and I don't like doing the data shuffle. I'd rather dump everything on c: and not mess with the libraries.

Look at NTFS junctions. My entire "Steam" folder actually sits on my D drive (which is a HDD) and there is a junction on my C drive (which is a SSD) that points to the folder on the other drive.

A friend of mine has the whole of "C:\Program Files\Games" on his D drive. If he installs a game to that folder, it goes to the other drive.

Or, you could just...uninstall games you're not going to play for a long time. Most games uninstall, and keep your save data around.

If it's a Steam game, it can be damn annoying waiting for the data to d/l again.

I stuffed a paltry 60gb ssd on my comp build last year, and while the faster cpu, etc is great, the ssd really shines most. I keep 1 or 2 games on it at most. Most games I just play, then remove after I'm done (mostly play single-player games).

I've got a hdd for major storage of mp3's and other junk.

I knew this one guy that would always complain about lack of hdd space back in 00's. I was at his house one day, and he was complaining again. That's when I noticed he had kept every game he had installed under the sun on the stupid computer ... games that he would never play again. I told him to uninstall all that stuff, but it was like I told him to cut out his heart. He was a pack-rat, and needed serious therapeutic help to get over his hoarding. I told him he could uninstall the games (eg: diablo 2 which he hand't played in years), keep the save data, then just install it when he wanted to play it years later. It was like talking to a tree stump.

Or, you could just...uninstall games you're not going to play for a long time. Most games uninstall, and keep your save data around.

If it's a Steam game, it can be damn annoying waiting for the data to d/l again.

I stuffed a paltry 60gb ssd on my comp build last year, and while the faster cpu, etc is great, the ssd really shines most. I keep 1 or 2 games on it at most. Most games I just play, then remove after I'm done (mostly play single-player games).

I've got a hdd for major storage of mp3's and other junk.

I knew this one guy that would always complain about lack of hdd space back in 00's. I was at his house one day, and he was complaining again. That's when I noticed he had kept every game he had installed under the sun on the stupid computer ... games that he would never play again. I told him to uninstall all that stuff, but it was like I told him to cut out his heart. He was a pack-rat, and needed serious therapeutic help to get over his hoarding. I told him he could uninstall the games (eg: diablo 2 which he hand't played in years), keep the save data, then just install it when he wanted to play it years later. It was like talking to a tree stump.

To each their own.

Now that Steam lets you choose which drive to install a game on I find managing an SSD/HDD combo much easier.